Eeevil
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11 year olds, iPhone repositories and the power of Eeeeeeevil
So while I was gone off, enjoying the wild wonders of Arizona, seems like a big kerfuffle tumulted, disturbed, and then resolved. Mike Rose just dropped me an IM, asking whether the whole "Mikey" thing meant that the iPhone was especially susceptible to malicious influences. Was this the canary in the coal mine? Are bad things coming down the road iPhone-wise?In my opinion? Not so much. This bad patch showed more that users could be quick to respond and capable of handling flackitude than that the iPhone was a particularly vulnerable platform. Less harm was done by Mikey the 11 year old than by the whole recent QuickBooks debacle. It's a given when one computes that bad things happen. Some harm is intentional, some not. What we saw at play here, and is especially obvious in retrospect, was a quick community response. The strong network of Apple/iPhone enthusiasts got the message out and acted with precision and decisiveness. Well done, guys.
Apple to pay higher wholesale movie price reports Ars
Over at infinite Loop, Former TUAW heavyweight David Chartier posts that Apple will soon be paying a $15 per movie wholesale price to the movie studios. David sees this as Apple caving into Hollywood after a tense face-off. Me? I see this another way. I don't believe the movie sales over at the iTunes store have been all that hugely successful. With competition from Walmart and weak consumer interest, I think Apple is changing its direction. Instead of movie sales, I'm thinking movie rentals. We've seen evidence for this both on the Mac in the iTunes binary (thanks Evan DiBiase) and on the iPhone (thanks Pumpkin). Rentals could do a lot for Apple's bottom line. It would re-energize the lagging Apple TV as a platform, it would expand the iPhone's reach as a portable media device, especially for travelers, and it would basically give up on iTunes-distributed buy-to-own movies as an unprofitable but fully explored avenue. So what do you think? Evil MPAA? Weak Apple? Or a new paradigm on the horizon?
